Articles

AbstractAfter briefly reviewing the basic components of sacramental theology, the author first reflects on the Trinitarian and iconic nature of marriage before turning his attention to the questions of marriage and its nature – as both procreative and unitive – and its impediments, which include consanguinity and affinity, monastic vows, and holy orders. The author next asks whether these (and other) impediments have always been consistently understood as such in the course of Byzantine and later Eastern marital and canonical practice or whether the Church has made use of her power to “bind and loose” and so to “dispense” or tolerate certain less than ideal practices. Such toleration is known as oikonomia or “economy,” whose etymological and patristic definitions are briefly reviewed before this practice is applied as a framework to interpret Eastern marriage practices and the relevant canons on such questions as second (and subsequent) marriages, adultery, and divorce, which, contrary to what some have maintained, the Christian East has never officially tolerated. The author compares Western practices and canons on several of these questions before drawing fourteen conclusions.

AbstractAfter briefly noting the considerable and currently burgeoning literature on the topic of infant communion among Christians of all traditions, the author turns his attention to one very important but rarely noted feature of the debate: the perceived obstacle to infant communion in Latin conciliar and canonical literature. This perception, it is argued, historically kept some Eastern Catholics from retaining or recovering this part of their legitimate liturgical and sacramental traditions. Beginning in the late eleventh century, the author briefly reviews such relevant figures as William of Champeaux, Hugh of St. Victor, Gilbert of Poitiers, and Robert Pulleyn, and such relevant councils as Lateran IV and Trent, whose decrees are reviewed in Latin and English, along with the various catechetical manuals arising after Trent. Among more recent treatments, the 1910 curial decree Quam singulari, promulgated under Pope Pius X, is perhaps the most significant, and the author carefully considers what it does and does not say. The review of all the relevant literature clearly indicates that there is nothing in the canonical or conciliar tradition of the Catholic Church forbidding infant communion. The author therefore concludes that no official teaching prevents a recovery of this practice, and all recent Catholic teaching – including Orientalium Ecclesiarum, Sacrosanctum Concilium, the 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, and the 1996 Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canon of the Eastern Churches – most strongly encourages a recovery of infant communion among Eastern Catholics.